


Pyrexia

by TaFuilLiom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: 3x16, F/F, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 15:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: 3x16 AU: All afternoon, Maggie has been following the news, especially when the cops who had aided the DEO with the quarantine had dropped with the plague. She knows how bad it is. She knows the death toll is climbing.Then she gets a phone call; Alex is infected.





	Pyrexia

**Author's Note:**

> Been thinking about this for a while. Something slightly fluffy after, like, that finale. Gets a bit graphic in terms of illness, but nothing too heavy.

**_Incubation_ **

“We’re still working on the cure.”

For such a simple statement, it tells Maggie everything. It tells her that time has been ticking all day, and that they’ve called her as a closing act. Her gut instinct is to ask just how much sand is left to slip down through the hourglass, but the downturned expression and the somber phone call from J’onn gives her a good idea. 

Instead, she asks, “How many hours has it been?”

No one answers; not Kara, Mon El, nor any of the agents standing around. J’onn looks at each of them, and then beckons her towards the stairs. Heart dropping out of her stomach, she follows wordlessly. 

All afternoon, she had been following the news, especially when the cops who had aided the DEO with the quarantine had dropped with the plague. They ascend the stairs shoulder to shoulder, and with each of their heavy steps, she thinks of the steady climb of the death toll in the city.

He pauses as they reach the walkway. “I don’t know how much longer she’ll be awake for,” he says, “ _ Coherent _ for.”

“I get it,” she manages. “Thanks for calling."

“I wasn’t sure whether or not you would want to come.”

“J’onn, God, of course I’d come.”

Underneath his eyes twitch, like she hit him, and Maggie wonders what he got from her mind as he looks away. “She wants to see you.”

She peers over his shoulder at the entrance to the medbay. “Did she ask?”

“No, but she wants to see you,” he repeats. Slower this time, so she can latch on to the implication. 

Maggie swallows at the idea that Alex, suffering through what could be her final hours, is radiating enough longing to prompt J’onn to pick up the phone. “Can I go in?”

“The only way that the infection is spreading is through Pestilence’s touch,” he says, “You can make contact.” 

“I can hold her hand?” she asks quietly.  

“Yes.” He carefully pats her bicep, squeezing like a  _ thank you _ . “I’ll give you some time alone.”

She dips her chin, putting a hand on his forearm and squeezing back.

 

**_Prodromal_ **

She notices Winn first. 

For a horrifying second, thinks she should call for help. Without the shallow breathing, she could mistake him for already being dead. In the far bed, Alex is curled up on her side, facing away from the door. Every so often, her body jerks, like it’s being shocked with an electric current.

Maggie spies a stool between the beds, and rolls it around until she can see Alex’s face. Her eyes are clenched shut, fists curling in the baby blue sheets. Sweaty brow twisted in agony and sickly pale; she’s still every inch the woman Maggie fell in love with. 

After taking a few calming breaths, Maggie says, “If I knew you were this bad, I would have brought some Robitussin.”

Alex peels her eyelids open. “Maggie?”

“Hey, you,” she replies, rolling the stool an inch or two closer. “How are you doing?”

“Fighting fit,” Alex jokes. She groans, reaching up to weakly adjust her pillow. “Ready to go.”

Eventually, Maggie stands and helps her, even mops her hair away from where it had been slicked against her forehead. Alex doesn’t even flinch at the touch. 

“They’re working hard on a cure,” Maggie assures, lowering herself back to the stool. 

“They tried that.” Alex sucks in a long breath which sounds like crackling ricepaper. “We gave it to Winn but-” Her words catch and her exhale comes out as a wheeze- “It wasn’t ready.” 

“Well, they’re working on it. So hang tight,” Maggie says, injecting her voice with the false enthusiasm that Supergirl might. 

Alex smiles hollowly, closing her eyes. She takes another few rasping breaths, before saying, “That’s not how this works.”

“Sure it is. You’re just being stubborn cause you’re not used to being the patient.”

Her joke falls flat. She hears Alex’s stomach gurgling, and the woman on the bed curls further in on herself. 

“Do you know how bad this is?” Alex asks, opening her eyes, stricken. 

Maggie is bound to silence by the truth; she does know how bad it is. She’s been hearing about it all morning as the news crawls into everyone’s mobile phones, the mass hysteria breeding faster than the spread of the disease itself. The hospitals and drug stores are jammed, the streets getting collectively busier as people gear up to supply themselves like a hurricane was coming. 

“My blood vessels have already started to…” Alex’s stomach gurgles again, and if possible, she gets even more sheet white. 

“Are you gonna throw up?” Maggie asks gently. 

Shamefully, Alex bites her cheek, and nods. Maggie reaches for an emesis dish and helps her sit up. A whole body tremor overcomes the sick woman, and Maggie knows that she’s just battling off the inevitable.

“It’s okay,” Maggie murmurs, using her free hand to brush Alex’s hair back from her face. 

She keeps talking lowly as Alex lurches forward, gaze carefully trained away from the bile being painfully retched into the dish. 

Alex chokes, and Maggie carefully brushes her thumb over the shell of the sick woman’s ear. “It’s okay, Alex. Easy.”

Still shuddering, Alex leans back, crumpling onto the bed. Maggie grabs a tissue from the box on the table, and dabs it against Alex’s chin and mouth. She drops it into the kidney shaped dish, noticing how Alex won’t hold her eye. 

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, “You shouldn’t have had to do that.” 

“Not the first time.” Maggie carefully opens the pedal-bin, tipping the emesis dish and its contents inside. Then, she moves to a unit in the wall, where she pumps alcoholic gel on her hands. Scrubbing, she gravitates back to Alex’s bedside. “Remember that sushi place that you got food poisoning from? You threw up for two days.”

Alex’s mouth is pinched at the edges. “Was there blood?” she asks faintly. 

Hands drying in the chilled medbay, Maggie drops her head and retakes her seat. “Yes.”

“It’s the blood vessels. Eventually flow to my organs will be blocked and then…” A shiver runs through her, a hand reaching out to curl around the metal bar of the bed. “It's only a matter of time before my body starts shutting down. Coma, shock, d-death.” 

Recalling what J’onn had said about transmission, Maggie reaches out to loosen the injured hand from the bedframe, clasping it in her own. She frowns at the angry, crimson scratch along the back. 

“My liver will probably go first,” Alex continues, “Thought it would be the whiskey. Guess not.”

“Don’t say that. You’re gonna get cured. And get out into the sunshine so you aren’t so goddamn pale.” Maggie nods and speaks with blind optimism. But even she can hear how robotically relayed it is, betraying the churning dread inside. “And when you’re back on your feet, you’re gonna continue being badass, and living your life. You’re gonna-” 

“Maggie…”

“You’re gonna be happy, and this is just gonna be another bad day that you don’t think about anymore. You’re gonna move on, and-” Her breath hitches, but she clears her throat and pushes past, “You’re gonna have a family-”

“Maggie,” Alex croaks again, closing her eyes. “Please, no.”

“No?”

“Don’t…” Alex flexes her injured hand. “Don’t talk about that.”

“Okay.” Maggie looks across at Winn, and then further out, catching the eye of an agent whose curiosity had made them pause by the doorway. The agent nods solemnly, and moves on. “What  _ do _ you wanna talk about?”

“I don’t wanna-” Alex bends her free arm over her face, coughing into her elbow. Then, settled again, she says, “I don’t wanna talk about the future. Or the past. I don’t have time for that.” 

Maggie listens as she struggles to take a deep breath, waiting until she does, however ragged. 

“I want you to talk me to sleep.”

During their time together, Alex found it hard to nap. Maggie encouraged her to do it as much as possible, because their schedules were unpredictable. So often, their sleep was interrupted, and Maggie hated seeing the exhaustion dragging her lover down. 

Therefore, she pushed her to get sleep when she could. But Alex could never drop off, too wired or too uncomfortable; music didn’t help, neither did meditation. But Maggie’s soothing voice talking to her about the trivial things in life calmed her enough to rest. 

Maggie talked about the weather, or a dull news segment, or why veganism was growing so rapidly as a trend in the younger generations. She was happy to, so long as Alex’s breathing evened out and contentment spread across her features. 

“You want me to talk to you like I used to?”

Alex’s body is frail, fighting and losing ground every minute, yet her eyes shimmer with her request. “Please.”

Maggie nods, nibbling at her lower lip, mentally resetting the clock. She lets a smile spread across her face, and Alex smiles back, pained but genuine. 

“I know you had your heart set on being by the river,” Maggie begins, talking conversationally as if they were sitting over coffee at Noonan’s. “But I went to a suspect’s house to ask follow up questions last week. They live in Glenvale and there’s a house there that’s...perfect.” 

“Yeah?” Alex whispers. 

“Yeah. It’s a little far out, but the commute might be worth it. Or I could transfer to a closer precinct. Plus, it’s halfway between here and the desert base, so really, it wouldn’t be too bad for you.”

Alex closes her eyes, lips flicking out to wet her parched lips. “What’s it like?”

“Pretty, even if it’s a little older. I figured that the layout is similar to the house of the guy I was questioning.” She sinks into the fantasy, hearing the ice cream truck a few streets over, smelling the fresh cut grass. “Kinda reminds me a little of Midvale.”

“Mom’ll be-” Something seizes her, and Maggie just strokes her trembling hand until she squeezes back.

“This kid was playing in a tree swing in next door’s front yard. Her mom was using the hose to tease their dog, and the kid was laughing and I thought Gertrude could be running around a yard like that.”

“Gertrude could…” Alex sighs, her whole body melting into the powder blue sheets. 

“Yeah. There’s a huge tree outside the house for sale, too. She could run circles around it until we’re exhausted chasing her.” 

Blood seeps from Alex’s nostril, eyelids fluttering, and Maggie reaches for another tissue. She wipes the crimson away. The agent doesn’t even react to the touch.  

“Maybe...we could have the whole thing,” she utters, balling the tissue in her fist, clinging to Alex’s hand with the other. “Dog, house, tree swing…” 

_ Kid _ . 

But Alex’s hand has gone slack, now, and Maggie realises she might never wake up to hear the end.  

 

**_Acute_ **

She sits for a while with an unconscious Alex, and then with Winn, and then she leaves. She’s scared to turn her back on the medbay, sure that the minute she does, both of them will crash and be gone in as long as it takes for their heart monitors to flatline.  

Maggie takes in the DEO with fresh eyes. The stern agents, the hard lines of it, the sheen of the surfaces. It all started here for them, and it could end here for them too. There are echos of Alex’s voice, of Alex’s touch everywhere- 

_ A minor first degree burn and a bruised collarbone.  _

She feels gloved fingertips stitching her shoulder-  _ How could I not like you? _

An expression bursting with excitement and nerves -  _ I wanna tell everyone. Tonight. At the bar. Come by for drinks? _

A hand pressed over her mouth, another between her thighs- 

_ You’ve gotta be quiet babe, you’re gonna get us caught.  _

Maggie moves down the walkway, craving the night air. Floating towards the balcony, she remembers hazy summer afternoons during their visits to Midvale, laughter as they tousled over who would buy the drinks, the clack of pool balls together in those early days. 

_ I’m worried about Kara.  _

_ I’m worried about Mom. _

Then, softer.  _ I’m worried about you.  _

She reaches the balcony, pressing her palms to the concrete, seeing the masses of people on the sidewalks far below. 

_ Marry me, please. _

“Your heart is racing.”

Maggie spins as Kara joins her, fidgeting with the edge of her cape. She shakes her head, turning her attention back to National City. “I wasn’t prepared for that.”

“Me neither.”

The honesty is raw, but necessary. Maggie automatically reaches out to put a hand on Kara’s shoulder, and is easily tugged into a full embrace. Any stiffness between them dissipates. They  _ need _ this. 

“Is Eliza helping with the cure?” Maggie asks. 

Kara pulls back, but stays close, looking down at their feet. “She didn’t answer her phone, so I’m going to go and get her if…” 

_ She has to say her goodbyes. _

“Alex doesn’t deserve this,” Maggie laments, looking up at the sky above them, tears burning in frustration and despair. “She deserves to live her life, find love, have a family.”

“Have a family? Don’t you get it Maggie?” Kara shakes her head, gesturing back inside the DEO. “She’s dying, and all she wants is  _ you _ .” 

Hot tears break through, slipping down Maggie’s cheeks. Kara’s throat bobs, and Maggie knows that she’s trying to hold off on her own hopelessness, but here and now, her mask slips. 

“It took me until now to see it, but it’s true,” Kara whispers, as if it’s an apology. 

Maggie’s phone vibrates in her pocket, and she sniffs hard, clearing her throat before answering. 

“Sawyer.” 

_ “Hey, Krasney wants everyone available to get out onto the streets. Panic is spreading.” _

“Got it.” Maggie hangs up, shoulders sagging. She closes her eyes, allows herself a second longer of heartbreak, before she sucks in a breath and raises her head. “Can you let me know if…?”

Kara nods. “Of course.”

And then Maggie leaves, her duty to the city calling her away from the duty to her heart. 

 

**_Convalescence_ **

Kara calls her in the middle of the night, apologising for the hour, apologising even more for the tears she sheds as she shares the good news. Afterwards, Maggie sits in the corridor of the hospital she had been posted to with her head in her hands, wondering if Kara put on her bouncy, preppy little sister act for Alex, and then when she got a quiet opportunity, let her facade fall.  

Then, a few days later, Alex calls. They exchange a few digs about her recovery, until finally admitting that they both want to talk. 

A week after Alex was cured, they meet in a community park in Glenvale. Maggie calls into a local deli to get their favourite sandwich orders, and picks up coffee the way that she remembers Alex likes it made. 

She finds her on a bench, hands in her jacket pockets, watching the dogs, the joggers, and the college sweethearts, all basking in the sunshine. She holds the wrapped sandwich and coffee holder out as a greeting, startling Alex.

“Thanks,” Alex says. Maggie notices the faded scratch from Pestilence as she reaches out to take her lunch. 

“There’s a place called Whitsun’s around the corner.” Alex shuffles up and Maggie takes a seat. “There’s a gold medal from the Winter Olympics behind the counter.”

Alex snorts as carefully sets her coffee on the ground and unwraps her sandwich. “Always the detective.” 

“I don’t know if it’s real. Never seen one before.” Maggie smiles down at her sandwich, fresh and prepared exactly as she likes it. “If I lived around here, I’d be there every day.”

She figures the best thing to do is bolt right out of the starting gate, and allow them to stew as they enjoy their lunch. Alex offers to throw the trash out when they’re done, and then they settle into the bench; not talking, but not quite awkward either.

Alex traces the logo on the take out cup. “The house was a lie, right? You made it up.”

“Oh, yeah.” They share a low chuckle, like it is a sly secret between them. Maggie sobers first, watching a yapping puppy chasing after its owner, who trips onto the grass and ends up with the puppy jumping on her chest. “But it...doesn’t have to be.”

“What you said, about everything…” Maggie catches Alex glancing over twice before she asks, “Did a part of you want that, again?”

“I’m not-I haven’t changed completely,” Maggie clarifies, “But...I have been thinking recently, about us. If maybe we should have talked more instead of freaking out at each other.”

“We talked a lot, Maggie,” Alex replies quietly, “We agreed there was no more to talk about.”

“We did.” The phantom shouting rings in her ears, but then, cutting through the din is Alex’s whispered plea for her to talk her to sleep. “But did you really  _ feel _ that way? Or did you just not want to argue anymore?”

Alex toys with the plastic lid. “How do you feel?”

“I feel like…” She can’t contain the scoff, or the grin that follows. “We’ve gotta stop almost dying before we get our shit together.”

Finally,  _ finally _ , Alex breaks, laughing in that hearty way she did when Maggie surprised her. She pops the lid off of her coffee, taking a long draw before she speaks again.

“I can’t guarantee that.” Alex sits straighter, looking over at Maggie with a soft smile. “But we can try, right?”

She offers her hand, and Maggie sets her own coffee aside to take it in both of hers. She remembers it going slack just the week before as Alex gave in to the pull of her infection, and now savours the warmth, the vitality. She brushes her thumb over the fading pink mark left by Pestilence, and looks out at the sunny park, letting hope light her heart once more.  

“Yeah, Danvers. We can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
